There comes a time when you have to make the transition from a promising
player to a fully fledged international cricketer and that moment has
arrived for Ravi Bopara.

Ravi is 26 now. He is a senior player. He has to realise he is not a kid and deliver. He will never get a better chance against an Indian team with the wheels off. Their attack is one of the easiest you could face, and without Zaheer Khan England could have picked another top six from county cricket and still done pretty well.

I want to see Ravi have more of a presence at the crease in the way he plays, and not just by the way he walks. He is a bit too cool for school sometimes and can lose focus.

His concentration has to be spot-on and not just when he bats. In the field he has to be on top of his game to show Englandhe is a big boy now.

I saw him in the Twenty20 at Bristol earlier this summer, just loping around in the outfield when Stuart Broad was captain. He has played a lot of cricket now and the captain should not have to tell Ravi what to do and where to go. He is a bit dozy in the field.

I know what that is like because I was the same as a young player, but eventually the penny has to drop and you have to be right on your game.

It will help Ravi that he is batting at six. He scored a hundred batting in that position against the West Indies two years ago and little things like that can make you feel more comfortable when you are parachuted back into the team.

But what Ravi has to do is trust his game, technique and mental approach. He has got to be a little less fidgety at the crease, stop trying to look cool. His biggest challenge will be playing on the same pitch as his hero, Sachin Tendulkar.

He has always tried to model himself on Sachin. But now he is playing a Test match against him and is going to have to admit he can’t idolise the guy. He can’t stare at every move he makes and say ‘‘wow, look at Sachin’’.

As Test cricketers, you can’t worship an opponent. It is a battle. It is you against them.

The bouncing ball has sorted Ravi out in the past. If you can push him back in his crease he starts to feel for the ball around about the fourth stump (an imaginary channel outside off-stump). He does not quite get his head over his front pad at first and, as it is for most players, the ball slanted across and nipping back in is a problem.

But when Ravi is in form he has a great on-side game and plays down the ground nicely, making him an entertaining batsman to watch. When he arrives at the crease under pressure at Edgbaston he just has to get his head over his front pad early and work out where the off-stump is. It helps to leave a few early on and not chase the ball.

A couple of years ago I thought Ravi had bought into the Twenty20 bug. I think he focused on that form of cricket but in the past 12 months he has realised that while you can make a good living out of Twenty20, in this country to be a star name, and regarded as a proper player, you have to be a Test-match performer.

Now he has been given a chance and if he is successful it might be more than a one-off game to fill in for Jonathan Trott. Tim Bresnan showed at Trent Bridge what can happen if you perform. If Ravi makes 150 he can’t be dropped, especially if Eoin Morgan struggles.

Morgan has been dismissed early on a few occasions and you can’t really read too much into his second-innings 70 at Trent Bridge. He faced benefit bowling and then immediately fell to the second new ball.

He needs a score and by moving up to five there will be an onus on him to perform.

He is not doing a great deal wrong but perhaps has been a little too cautious. If he looks to attack and score he will move into better position to defend and play the ball. His first decision has to be to look to score and everything will follow.

There is a pressure on individuals to perform because this is the biggest group of players England have ever had to choose from.

There is real competition for places. It is now not a worry if someone loses form because you can bring in another player and be confident he will be successful.

Ravi can prove this week he could be one of the long-term options. He may also only have one chance because the likelihood is he might only get one knock againstIndia.

It is hard to see India having a chance this week. I just hope they can show a bit more fight and Dravid-like determination throughout the team in their batting, bowling and fielding. We want to see more of a contest and India play better.